Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is one of the nation’s most popular politicians — and he seems to already be making a national impact.
Other state capitals have begun replicating the laws first signed by DeSantis.
For example, the Wyoming legislature is advancing a bill called the Parental Rights in Education Act.
The Wyoming bill says, “No school district shall permit classroom instruction by teachers or any other person on sexual orientation and gender identity… For students in grades kindergarten through three… [or in] a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with standards established by the state board of education.”
Last year, DeSantis signed a similar law… with the exact same name. An NPR affiliate just described the Equality State’s new bill as “Wyoming’s version of ‘Don’t Say Gay.'”
Similarly, Gov. Brian Kemp, R-Ga., signed a bill last year to give the state’s investigation bureau the power to police elections. He reportedly became the second governor to do so, after his neighbor: DeSantis.
The list goes on.
The DeSantis administration has relished the governor’s role as a national leader in policy making.
“We are proud to be a model for the nation,” Jeremy T. Redfern, the governor’s deputy press secretary, wrote in an email to national media.
He went on to call Florida “an island of sanity in a sea of madness.”
However, some conservatives dispute the characterization of DeSantis as a national leader.
“There is a lazy narrative building that DeSantis is a bold, courageous risk-taker, and all of these other Republican governors are lounging back and just waiting to see what DeSantis is doing,” a county GOP chair in Texas told national media.
Sure enough, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas made a spectacle of busing migrants to Washington, D.C., with DeSantis following his lead.
Plus, Washington’s policymaking groups — like the Manhattan Institute and the Heritage Foundation — are still drafting conservative legislation… hundreds of miles away from the Sunshine State.
Still, DeSantis seems to bear the brunt of the brunt of liberal hysteria. For example, the senior manager at PEN America accused DeSantis of “a sustained and escalating assault against public education,” despite DeSantis’s plan to increase teacher pay.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article.